Support has_many :through instead of just only has_and_belongs_to_many

[kidlab]

has_and_belongs_to_many works well for most of use-cases, but it's annoying if we want to:

• Use a custom join table instead of having to follow the rule "#{self.to_s.tableize.gsub(/\//, "_")}_#{self.role_table_name}"
• Have more fields in the join table, e.g: created_at and updated_at

For the above reasons, I added one more option called has_many_through to allow developer can use a customized join table by has_many :through association.

[coveralls]

Coverage decreased (-0.17%) when pulling 5c926e9 on kidlab:master into 45de8cf on EppO:master.

[tmaier]

+1 for using has_many :through instead of habtm.

Whats the reason for has_many :through as an option?
As far as I know, habtm is considered simpler but not recommended choice in general.

My use case:
I want to list all licensees and also be able to add new licensees this way.
as resourcify, I get an ActiveRecord::HasManyThroughCantAssociateThroughHasOneOrManyReflection error

  resourcify
  has_many :licensees,
           class_name: 'User',
           through: :roles,
           source: :users,
           conditions: { roles: { name: 'licensee' } }

[EppO]

Thanks for this PR. I plan to switch from HABTM to has_many :trough in rolify 4.0.
I will eventually add this as a opt-in option in 3.x branch (most likely in 3.5)

[enricostano]

👍

[enricostano]

@kidlab this will allow us to add validations on Role, right?

[kidlab]

Because I need to use that variable here :)

[kidlab]

@enricostano Yup, but the main purpose of this is to allow us use a custom joining table (e.g, users_roles) to keep track information like create_at, and more in that table.

[enricostano]

👌

[enricostano]

is anybody using this branch in a production environment?

[wldcordeiro]

@kidlab Is this PR all setup and working? I see that the Travis build passes but it's been a while so I was wanting some more info. This would be a good feature to include in Rolify.

[werleo]

@wldcordeiro I made quick look on blame in changed method.
It looks like last change there was made on 27 Aug 2013.
PR was made 31 Aug 2013 so everything should be fine after merge.

[hut8]

Any progress on this? What's holding it up?

[Genkilabs]

Anyone still interested in this? I would love to create a relation and scopes :through roles.
Perhaps with syntax like:

class User < ApplicationRecord
  has_many :owned_accounts, -> { where(:roles => {:name => :owner}) }, 
           :through => :roles, 
           :source => :resource, 
           :source_type => :account, 
           :class_name => 'Account'

Boo, this was wrong, see next comment

[Genkilabs]

Scratch my last comment, you can remove class_name, but must be sure source_type is capitalized to match the model name and it seems to create good SQL:

class User < ApplicationRecord
  has_many :owned_accounts, -> { where(:roles => {:name => :owner}) }, 
           :through => :roles, 
           :source => :resource, 
           :source_type =>  :Account

[Durev]

Hi guys,
Is this PR still relevant?
Is more development or testing needed?
How can we help to get this shipped?

[tmaier]

Long time has past, but i think this is still relevant

[yshmarov]

SUMMARY:

user.rb

has_many :posts, through: :roles, source: :resource, source_type:  :Post
has_many :moderated_posts, -> { where(roles: {name: :moderator}) }, through: :roles, source: :resource, source_type:  :Post

let's you do

@user.posts 
=> all the posts where the @user has a role
@user.moderated_posts
=> all the posts where the @user has a moderator

post.rb

has_many :users, through: :roles, class_name: 'User', source: :users
has_many :moderators, -> { where(:roles => {name: :moderator}) }, through: :roles, class_name: 'User', source: :users

let's you do

@post.users
=> all the users that have a role in this post
@post.moderators
=> all the users that have a moderator role in this post

This is something that should be 100% included in the gem, or in the description

[alec-c4]

Hey! Any news with this PR?

[thomas-mcdonald]

I'd like to ship this! I'm not sure of the migration path for folks with existing Rolify instances or if we need to change generators. I think I would rather we default to has_many through if possible.